In college my sophomore year, I lived in a coed dorm. Men down one wing and women the other, with a common lounge on each floor and free access to the other wing - it was as easy as wandering down the hall the other way, basically, to hang out with the opposite gender.
I didn’t really wear makeup much, and sometimes I got my hair cut kind of short. But the big reason that I heard some of the women on my floor thought I was a lesbian? I was always hanging out in the men’s wing and/or with the men in general.
Uh… yeeeeeaaaah. While you women were turning our wing into a gas warfare region every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night with tons of hairspray and perfume, before going out to parties? I was quite happily bedding one of the guys who lived in the men’s wing of our floor, and happened to be friends with a few other guys who lived there. (The guy I was getting busy with has been my husband for years now. )
I’m bisexual, so that’s rather hard to stereotype, but I *have *had people insisting that I’m either gay and in denial or straight and just experimenting. Since I’ve had fulfilling relationships with both men and women, I’m quite sure that I know what I am. I would have no problem admitting to myself if I were strictly one or the other. However, I’m not.
On one message board I belonged to I identified as a lesbian because I wanted to avoid the rather competitive heterosexual flirtation-drama that went on there. Unfortunately, that was where I met the guy to whom I’m now married. Oops.
Gender expectations are one of the great plagues on mankind. I spent years being single (after being badly hurt in a relationship–don’t I know that men aren’t supposed to have emotions other than varying degrees of rage?).
I have a friend who I barely see anymore. I found out that his wife has a strange habit of deciding that people are gay and then they don’t spend time with that person anymore. A combination of my single-ness, my gentle personality, my dislike for sports, and that I find it repulsive when men objectify women has made things difficult for me in this life.
I’m starting to think it would be fun to hang out with all of the gays and false-gays in this thread. Atypical males are the ones I best relate to.
I’ve been told a couple time that I was a repressed gay (when actually I was 97% heterosexual, and the 3% left weren’t interested in the guy making this assumption). Nothing besides that.
On the other hand, I’ve been secretly hoping for many years that my oldest brother is a closeted gay rather than an unhappy eternally single man. I’m not close enough to him to actually ask. I also suspect another female relative is a closeted lesbian despite a complete lack of evidence. So, sue me.
Not being whooshed by me. I did, however, intend to have a smilie after the ‘lightweight’ so you wouldn’t take offense. I’m just not as sensitive as I thought!
:)
Gave you another one for interest.
Wait! Not interest like you think I mean…I mean…uh, I’m…
Never mind, I think I’ll go bake some…Oh, wait, I can’t bake…
(whew, that was close!)
I have an amusing anecdote. I was training a real flamer for a job while working with a friend of mine. Out of nowhere, trainee/flamer turned to me and said “Can you lend me three dollars?” On the first day of low paying job, of course I’ll lend some poor sap a few bucks. I take a break, come back and the queen is gone to lunch. My friend told me that trainee told her that he could tell ‘family’ right away. She asked him about me, while I was gone, and he said “Definitely!”
Hell, people at work have wondered about me as well.
I don’t know if it’s the “European” part of me or what, but one of my friends at work is an RN (straight) and I don’t think anything at all about giving his shoulder a squeeze when we come on shift, and since he and I are just a few of the males who work the weekend, and because we get along so well, well… people just drew the wrong conclusions.
But his neck’s redder than mine, y’all!
Also, I like making tactile contact with my patients when I first introduce myself - male or female - I offer my hand, and if they’re lying on the stretcher I leave my hand in theirs after giving it that little shake, just to make them comfortable, I reckon.
But people are gonna think what they want, and you know what? Being 58, I really just don’t give a shit and why did I start this freakin thread in the first damn place?
I know that. But the problem is, I only go when I actually need to buy something. So that counts more as “not-gay” (unless, of course, I were a lesbian).
I know people have wondered about me because they’ve told me. Sometimes I care and sometimes I don’t. Like, for a while I felt really depressed about my “differentness” from the other folks at work. I tried really hard to fit in and be normal, even coming up with creative stories so that my life didn’t seem so bleak and empty. But now I’ve come to realize everyone knows I’m weird. I can’t not be weird, so I might as well give up trying. People still seem to like me okay, and that’s all I really care about.
I’m not saying I’m completely fine with being me, though. I wish I had a warmer heart; I long to experience those emotions and desires that everyone else seems to have. My existence is lonely, no matter how hard I convince myself it’s not. I feel like my whole life, I’ve just been drifting along in my own quiet, boring, cold world–and even that world I don’t completely understand. When people discover I’m this way–which they inevitable do–they react with clueless sympathy (“Poor thing! You must be really shy!”), exasperation (“You’re so attractive and smart and funny and here you are wasting it!”), or alarm (“You need to see a doctor right now. This isn’t normal. Maybe it’s hormonal.”) Women aren’t supposed to be like me. I’m supposed to have fantasies about Mr. Right sweeping me off my feet, calling up my best friends when he proposes ("He went to Jareds! OMG!!1), and having babies. Or at least desire and seek human contact. I’m not supposed to fantasize about living in the woods all alone for the rest of my life. So I still lie when it comes to certain subjects, because I know most people can’t handle the truth. I hate lying and being a fraud. This is what makes me depressed.
People have probably thought up all kinds of hypotheses about me, from autistic/schizophrenic to repressed homosexual to unloving cold-hearted bitch. It hurts, yes, because I’m not sure I can rule out any of those hypotheses. Sadly, that’s how much a stranger I am to myself. But all I can do is just try to keep my head up and not stare into the abyss too much. I’m not ready to retreat to the woods quite yet.
I don’t remember off the top of my head, but didn’t Kinsey have a scale of 0-100 of sexuality?
Something like 0 is completely hetero while 100 is all homo. I think he postulated that no one is a 0 or 100, we are all varying degrees in between. Personally, I think I am about a 10-15, I have never had a homosexual experience, I don’t plan on having one, but I can see why men find women so attractive…
Up until a recent accident, I play in a fast-pitch women’s softball league, none of that pansy-ass slow-pitch crap.
I would say that greater than 50% of the women in my softball league are lesbians, so when we are all out at a bar together in our uniforms, the assumption is I am on that team. Plus, we tended to go to gay-friendly bars, so I can see how people would make the assumption. It doesn’t bother me in the least and I am flattered when anyone finds me attractive, male or female.
Funny story, I was eighteen or so and had just started in the league I was in. I had a snazzy little red Honda del sol convertible. I noticed that at a number of our games, the subaru wagons all had these neat rainbow stickers. I remarked to one of the ladies on my team that the rainbow sticker would look pretty snazzy on my red car. She chuckled and asked if I was ready to play for the rainbow team. It took me a few minutes to realize what she meant. They still refer to me as “Rainbow”. What can I say, I was once very naive.
I hope so too. Between that and racism It’s ruining the world. Untill we can stop judging each other by sight what hope do we have of ever getting along as a world community? Looking at others and judging them on sight, for any reason just sucks.
)
